Consumption patterns show the world will want more manufactured goods in the next 15 years, and Chicago is well positioned to play a role in demand for more specialized, short-lived, quickly produced products, said a McKinsey & Company principal who studies manufacturing in the Midwest and worldwide.

But success in Chicago will depend on developing some key competitive elements, added Louis Rassey, a principal in McKinsey & Company’s Chicago office and co-author of the firm’s report “Manufacturing the future: The next era of global growth and innovation.”

The challenges include knitting together the competitive Midwest manufacturing community, encouraging local talent to innovate in the manufacturing field and encouraging venture investors to take financial risks in manufacturing companies that, while getting to market faster than in the past, can take twice as long to mature as software companies.

“This is a really disrupted time,” he said. “But there are a few big technological shifts that excite us.”

The advantages Rassey sees in the Midwest and Chicago include an embrace of computer-controlled mills, 3-D printers and other new manufacturing technologies that enable new manufacturing processes, Rassey said. He added that Chicago also benefits from:

local advances by firms exploring the sensors, cloud-computing and analytical software that enable digital manufacturing;

advances in new materials such as carbon fiber that are being embraced in Midwest factories;

the proliferation of digitally connected products;

and marketplace partnerships that together frame the immediate future for advanced manufacturing.

Rassey cited interest among big industry in the Midwest, the growing number of Chicago-based software startups and the upcoming federally funded advanced manufacturing laboratory to be built on Goose Island.

“We’re well positioned to be at the center of that digital disruption,” Rassey said. “You look at how digital has disrupted other segments — media, health care, travel — we see the same potential in the industrial manufacturing.”

It’s a good time to be near the leading edge, he added.

The global manufacturing landscape is changing in response to more fragmented markets and growing demand from the developing world. Meanwhile, it is easier than ever to reach far-flung audiences with novel goods thanks to new technologies, materials, digitization, smart products and new partnerships.

Creating manufacturing jobs in Chicago, as elsewhere, will depend on how imaginative companies are with partnerships among creators, manufacturers, partners and distributors.

Called “next-shoring” and envisioned by consultants, operations futurists and advanced manufacturing enthusiasts, the next wave of manufacturing will feature relationships over native capabilities and agility over efficiency — and will spurn geography.

Rassey said “the shift hasn’t happened yet.” Nevertheless, he said interest in advanced manufacturing innovation among venture and private equity investors in the Midwest, on the coasts and even abroad is mounting. And eyes increasingly are turning to Chicago and its grasp of the newest disruptive technologies.

“You want to compete to be the leader leveraging these disruptive technologies in these next products for these next billion consumers,” Rassey said.